


Strength

by zvi



Series: $ Universe [1]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Gen, Pre-Series, Purim Treat-a-thon 2009
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-10
Updated: 2009-03-10
Packaged: 2017-10-02 06:26:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zvi/pseuds/zvi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Parker loves money.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strength

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bessemerprocess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bessemerprocess/gifts).



> Written for the 2009 [Purim Treat-a-thon](http://purimgifts.livejournal.com/).

Parker loves money. She is most enamored of U.S. bills in denominations greater than $50. Which is not to say that she dislikes other moneys, not at all. She has a rising appreciation for the euro, a healthy respect for the pound sterling, and a fond nostalgia for liras, marks, and francs, which were eliminated by European geopolitics.

For reasons which do not bear exploring at this juncture, she is not fond of the Canadian dollar or the South African rand. Despite its historically volatile value fluctuation, she is unreasonably fond of the Mexican peso, and generally makes sure to get down to Baja once a year and exchange enough to get one of each denomination. If she had friends, they might have observed her cooing at the coins about their adorableness.

She has never had friends.

As a small child, Parker was assured by a rotating assortment of social workers that her mother and father loved her very much and were preparing to care for her themselves, as soon as they were released from prison. They did not bother to explain that her parents' sentences were routinely extended for violence (mother) or comically inept drug dealing (father.)

Her foster families seemed to alternate between violently indifferent homes where she was the only child and loving homes where her quiet blankness was misread as safely neglectable normal social development.

Her peers recognized her as different and dangerous. When Charles Pope-Hayden's desk melted into a puddle of goo, Mrs. Nielsen blamed his second grade science fair project, the one on alternative plant foods. The children remembered that he splashed green paint on Parker's sweater on Picture Day. Mrs. Nielsen tried to get Teresa Arthur to finish her schoolwork in blue pen or black pencil, anything but green crayon. Everyone in Mrs. Nielsen's class had heard Teresa call Parker The Toxic Avenger; they knew nothing would change.

Nothing did, until the day Teresa, despairing, handed over her lunch money. Two quarters, one dime, and one nickel, warm and hard, rested loosely on Parker's hand. "What's this?" she said, slow shark's smile spreading across her face.

"I wanna write with a pencil," said Teresa, head down, eyes trained on her sneakers. "Mommy says I gotta be a big girl and use a pencil."

Parker wasn't listening. She was concentrating on the feel of the discs in her hand, the subtleties of their grooves, the faint smell of warm metal. She was weighing the power.


End file.
